It would not have been difficult to compile a volume out of the papers left by my sisters, had I, in making the selection, dismissed from my consideration the scruples and the wishes of those whose thoughts these papers held. But this was impossible: an influence, stronger than could be exercised by any motive of expediency, necessarily regulated the selection. I have, then, culled from the mass only a little poem here and there. The whole makes but a tiny nosegay, and the colour and the perfume of the flowers are not such as fit them for festal uses.

It has been already said that my sisters wrote much in childhood and girlhood. Usually it seems a sort of injustice to expose in print the crude thoughts of the unripe mind, the rude efforts of the unpractised hand: yet I venture to give three little poems of my sister Emily's, written in her sixteenth year, because they illustrate a point in her character.

At that period she was sent to school. Her previous life, with the exception of a single half-year, had been passed in the absolute retirement of a village parsonage, amongst the hills bordering Yorkshire and Lancashire. The scenery of these hills is not grand—it is not romantic; it is scarcely striking. Long low moors, with heath, shut in little valleys, where a stream waters, here and there, a fringe of stunted copse. Mills and scattered cottages chase romance from these valleys; it is only higher up, deep in amongst the ridges of the moors, that Imagination can find rest for the sole of her foot; and even if she finds it there, she must be a solitude-loving raven, no gentle dove. If she demand beauty to inspire her, she must bring it inborn: these moors are too stern to yield to any product so delicate. The eye of the gazer must itself brim with a 'purple light,' intense enough to perpetuate the brief flower-flush of August on the heather, or the sunset smile of June; out of his heart must well the freshness, that in latter spring and early summer brightens the bracken, nurtures the moss, and cherishes the starry flowers that spangle for a few weeks the pasture of the moor-sheep. Unless that light and freshness are innate and self-sustained, the drear prospect of a Yorkshire moor will be found as barren of poetic as of agricultural interest: where the love of wild nature is strong, the locality will perhaps be clung to with the more passionate constancy, because from the hill-lover's self comes half its charm.

My sister loved the moors. Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed in the blackest of the heath for her; out of a sullen hollow in a livid hill-side her mind could make an Eden. She found in the bleak solitude many and dear delights; and not the least and best loved was—liberty. Liberty was the breath of Emily's nostrils; without it, she perished. The change from her own home to a school, and from her own very noiseless, very secluded, but un-restricted and inartificial mode of life, to one of disciplined routine (though under the kindliest auspices) was what she failed in enduring. Her nature proved here too strong for her fortitude. Every morning when she woke, the vision of home and the moors rushed on her, and darkened and saddened the day that lay before her. Nobody knew what ailed her but me—I knew only too well. In this struggle her health was quickly broken: her white face, attenuated form, and failing strength, threatened rapid decline. I felt in my heart she would die, if she did not go home, and with this conviction obtained her recall. She had only been three months at school: and it was some years before the experiment of sending her from home was again ventured on. After the age of twenty, having meantime studied alone with diligence and perseverance, she went with me to an establishment on the continent; the same suffering and conflict ensued, heightened by the strong recoil of her upright, heretic and English spirit from the gentle Jesuitry of the foreign and Roman system. Once more she seemed sinking, but this time she rallied through the mere force of resolution: with inward remorse and shame she looked back on her former failure, and resolved to conquer in this second ordeal. She did conquer: but it cost her dear. She was never happy till she carried her hard-won knowledge back to the remote English village, the old parsonage house, and desolate Yorkshire hills. A very few years more, and she looked her last on those hills, and breathed her last in that house, and under the aisle of that obscure village church found her last resting-place. Merciful was the decree that spared her when she was a stranger in a strange land, and guarded her dying bed with kindred love and congenial constancy.

The following pieces were composed at twilight, in the schoolroom, when the leisure of the evening play-hour brought back in full tide the thought of home.

Currier Bell.

POSTHUMOUS POEMS

EDITED BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË

I

'A little while, a little while,The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,Alike, while I have holiday.

Grieved at first, but grieved not long,Sweet—how softly sweet!—it came;
Wild words of an ancient song,Undefined, without a name.

'It was spring, and the skylark was singing';Those words they awakened a spell;
They unlocked a deep fountain, whose springing,Nor absence, nor distance can quell.

In the gloom of a cloudy NovemberThey uttered the music of May;
They kindled the perishing emberInto fervour that could not decay.

Awaken, o'er all my dear moorland,West-wind, in thy glory and pride!
Oh! call me from valley and lowland,To walk by the hill-torrent's side!

It is swelled with the first snowy weather;The rocks they are icy and hoar,
And sullenly waves the long heather,And the fern leaves are sunny no more.

There are no yellow stars on the mountain;The bluebells have long died away
From the brink of the moss-bedded fountain—From the side of the wintry brae.

But lovelier than corn-fields all wavingIn emerald, and vermeil, and gold,
Are the heights where the north-wind is raving,And the crags where I wandered of old.

It was morning: the bright sun was beaming;How sweetly it brought back to me
The time when nor labour nor dreamingBroke the sleep of the happy and free!

But blithely we rose as the dawn-heavenWas melting to amber and blue,
And swift were the wings to our feet given,As we traversed the meadows of dew.

For the moors! For the moors, where the short grassLike velvet beneath us should lie!
For the moors! For the moors, where each high passRose sunny against the clear sky!

For the moors, where the linnet was trillingIts song on the old granite stone;
Where the lark, the wild skylark, was fillingEvery breast with delight like its own!

What language can utter the feelingWhich rose, when in exile afar,
On the brow of a lonely hill kneeling,I saw the brown heath growing there?

It was scattered and stunted, and told meThat soon even that would be gone:
It whispered, 'The grim walls enfold me,I have bloomed in my last summer's sun.'

But not the loved music, whose wakingMakes the soul of the Swiss die away,
Has a spell more adored and heartbreakingThan, for me, in that blighted heath lay.

The spirit which bent 'neath its power,How it longed—how it burned to be free!
If I could have wept in that hour,Those tears had been heaven to me.

Well—well; the sad minutes are moving,Though loaded with trouble and pain;
And some time the loved and the lovingShall meet on the mountains again!

The following little piece has no title; but in it the genius of a solitary region seems to address his wandering and wayward votary, and to recall within his influence the proud mind which rebelled at times even against what it most loved

IV

Shall earth no more inspire thee,Thou lonely dreamer now?
Since passion may not fire thee,Shall nature cease to bow?

When you, young man, have borne like me
The weary weight of sixty-three,
Then shall penance sore be paidFor those hours so wildly squandered;
And the words that now fall deadOn your ear, be deeply pondered—
Pondered and approved at last:
But their virtue will be past!

'Glorious is the prize of Duty,Though she be "a serious power";
Treacherous all the lures of Beauty,Thorny bud and poisonous flower!

'Mirth is but a mad beguilingOf the golden-gifted time;
Love—a demon-meteor, wilingHeedless feet to gulfs of crime.

'Those who follow earthly pleasure,Heavenly knowledge will not lead;
Wisdom hides from them her treasure,Virtue bids them evil-speed!

'Vainly may their hearts repenting,Seek for aid in future years;
Wisdom, scorned, knows no relenting;Virtue is not won by fears.'

Thus spake the ice-blooded elder gray;
The young man scoffed as he turned away,
Turned to the call of a sweet lute's measure,
Waked by the lightsome touch of pleasure:
Had he ne'er met a gentler teacher,
Woe had been wrought by that pitiless preacher.

IX

THE WANDERER FROM THE FOLD

How few, of all the hearts that loved,Are grieving for thee now;
And why should mine to-night be movedWith such a sense of woe?

Too often thus, when left alone,Where none my thoughts can see,
Comes back a word, a passing toneFrom thy strange history.

Thou shouldst live in eternal spring,Where endless day is never dim;
Why, Seraph has thine erring wingWafted thee down to weep with him?

'Ah! from heaven am I descended,Nor do I come to mingle tears;
But sweet is day, though with shadows blended;And, though clouded, sweet are youthful years.

'I—the image of light and gladness—Saw and pitied that mournful boy,
And I vowed—if need were—to share his sadness,And give to him my sunny joy.

'Heavy and dark the night is closing;Heavy and dark may its bidding be:
Better for all from grief reposing,And better for all who watch like me—

'Watch in love by a fevered pillow,Cooling the fever with pity's balm;
Safe as the petrel on tossing billow,Safe in mine own soul's golden calm!

'Guardian-angel he lacks no longer;Evil fortune he need not fear:
Fate is strong, but love is stronger;And my love is truer than angel-care.'

XV

THE VISIONARY

Silent is the house: all are laid asleep:
One alone looks out o'er the snow-wreaths deep,
Watching every cloud, dreading every breeze
That whirls the wildering drift, and bends the groaning trees.

Cheerful is the hearth, soft the matted floor;
Not one shivering gust creeps through pane or door;
The little lamp burns straight, its rays shoot strong and far:
I trim it well, to be the wanderer's guiding-star.